Mama Jae’s schedule this semester is also challenging for us. She goes to rugby practice on Mondays and Wednesdays from 6-8, and teaches a class on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 4-7. So we eat dinner super duper late pretty much every day during the week, and on Mondays I have over 12 hours of solo baby care. I got spoiled during my six weeks of maternity leave, which coincided with the end of the summer, meaning that Mama Jae and I took care of the baby together most days. Going back to work and having Mama Jae back at school at the same time makes for a rocky transition. Right now is kind of hard. We are also having some money troubles all of a sudden, which is super stressful.

Anyway, back to the baby. About 10 days ago, Essie went through a mini-phase (like 2 or 3 days) of sleeping 5 or 6 hours at a time at night, which felt like the most fabulous thing ever, and tricked me into thinking it might be possible for that to happen all the time. But that phase is over, and she is back to waking up more frequently, at times about 30 minutes after she eats. We have tried shushing/soothing her back to sleep, but it means less sleep for everyone involved, since whichever mama is not actively trying to put the baby down can hear it all regardless. So last night, when she woke up at 3 a.m. after only an hour of sleep, I took her into bed with me, took out a boob, and let her do whatever she wanted with it until 6 a.m., when my alarm went off. I think we all got more sleep that way, but I worry that I’m setting us up for disaster later.

Speaking of sleep, I’m interested in hearing various opinions about Dr. Weissbluth and his Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. A friend (hey E!) gave us the book, and I know a lot of bloggers out there have been trying sleep training (on their older babies—Essie is too young, for sure—she’s only 8 weeks). Right now I’m focusing on his advice to not let the baby be awake for more than 2 hours at a time, and I start trying to put her to sleep once she’s been awake for an hour or so, or when I see drowsy behavior, rather than letting her get to the screaming point if I can help it. That seems to be going okay, most of the time, and she’s taking longer naps during the day now. Anyone have any thoughts on Dr. W in general? While I no longer break out into a full-out flop sweat every time the baby cries, I can’t imagine being able to leave her alone to cry.

I’d also love to hear about bedtime routines that have worked for you and your baby. Last night I nursed Essie at about 6:30 for a little over half an hour. A little while later I bathed her in her tub (and she didn’t scream the whole time, thank goodness. I steamed the hell out of the bathroom and filled the tub so that most of her body was submerged. She wasn’t exactly delighted to be in the tub but she was much much better). Then I put her in a clean diaper and her pjs, turned out the light, and shushed/walked her around until she’d been asleep for ten minutes. I put her down, and five minutes later she was up again, so I did the shushing/walking thing again, and she slept from about 8:30-9:45, when I nursed her again for about 15 minutes. After that she slept for three hours. During the shushing/soothing, Mama Jae was downstairs eating by herself, which sucked, because we get so little time together right now. What do you think—should I be trying to put her down earlier, so that we can try to have some time together in the evenings? Or is that kind of unrealistic right now, and we need to just go with the baby’s flow? I also only bathe her every 3 nights since she’s so small, so the routine is going to vary for right now, until she needs a bath every night. Is that confusing for her?

As you can tell, I am having some anxiety. Rationally, I know that we are doing a good job parenting, and the first three months are hard, and no one really knows what they’re doing the first go-round, and that this won’t last forever. And the days, once I’ve had my shower and coffee, are so lovely. I don’t know why I’m so wigged out over this sleeping thing. I think it comes from my perfectionism: I want to do this right, and I don’t know what “right” is. I guess I just need some more new moms to talk to—I don’t know a ton of people here with young babies, so I don’t have many people IRL to discuss these concerns with in a constructive way. So, I turn to you once again, you lovely ladies of the blogosphere. Words of wisdom, advice, encouragement, and any other types of comfort would be greatly appreciated right now.

So tomorrow I head back to work. Meanwhile, this week, Essie has been a lovable joyful bundle of pure bliss. She has started social smiling, which is quite possibly the most heart-meltingly wonderful thing I have ever experienced. I love how when she does something, she does it with her whole entire being. When she’s stretching, she is stretching: little fists balled overhead, little legs kicked out (if the harness is off, of course), little face scrunched up, completely focused on the simple pleasure of the stretch. She embraces whatever she is doing wholeheartedly, whether it is waking up and smiling her little face off at the joy of facing another day with her enamored moms, which is awesome, or screaming, which is less awesome. But it’s better than it used to be—we are more confident now, I think, and better at figuring out how to calm her, so there is much less screaming time now.

Essie has been sleeping for longer stretches at night, but her latest thing is what seems to me to be continuous grunting throughout the night, which wakes me up if I’m asleep or keeps me up if I’m awake. I can’t figure out if she’s pooping, or trying to break free of her swaddle, or what. The grunts aren’t sleep cues, but I still wake up as if they were, ready to feed her, but then I look at the time and realize that can’t be it. We are trying to figure out whether the swaddle is something helpful at this point or not. She has never liked the act of being swaddled, but it has helped calm her or get her to sleep in the past. It does seem like she is trying harder than before to break out of it with her little arms, though. I guess we will try putting her down with her arms free and seeing if that helps reduce the constant grunting.

I’ve been doing some reading this morning about scheduling, and about bedtime routines. We haven’t really initiated a routine at bedtime yet—we don’t really know when her bedtime IS, in the first place, because she’s only 6 weeks and evening isn’t really that different from day in terms of her activities. I’ve been nursing her on demand, and this week there seems to be a 7:30 or 8 pm feeding routine that has emerged. Usually I feed her and we continue to do whatever we were doing, whether it’s eating or watching tv or whatever, and she’s in our space while we’re doing it. I’m wondering whether we shouldn’t be making a separation between day and night at that point—putting her down in her cosleeper for the night—rather than at around 10 when we’re headed for bed ourselves. Last night after I nursed her when Mama Jae and I got in bed, it took until after midnight to get her down, and that’s no good for working mamas.

We haven’t really been tracking her naps during the day, because for so long she was sleeping so much that it seemed like a pointless thing to track, but now that she’s awake during the day more I think I want to start doing that to see if any patterns emerge there. That way we can more effectively plan our own lives, knowing which longer stretches we have and when so we can get significant chunks of work done. It’ll also help us know what times make the most sense to play with Essie and anticipate her sleep needs a bit better.

speak of the devil…playtime!

A baby’s wants are the same as her needs. You should always respond to a crying baby. This is how she develops trust.

and

A baby needs to spend some time on her stomach so that she can work on her developmental skills.

You should bathe the baby a couple of times a week.

I mean, the second we put Essie down on her stomach, she loses her shit. Same with the bath. If she doesn’t want to be on her stomach or in the bath, isn’t that, according to the first statement, the same as her needing not to be on her stomach or in the bath? And by not addressing her want/need at that moment, aren’t we therefore risking her trust?

I’m only half-kidding here. I mean, I get that she needs tummy and bath time and that for now, anyway, she will cry, and that’s okay. But still. How is a new mother supposed to make sense of this contradictory advice?

I also keep having these anxieties that pop up every once in awhile. Didn’t I read somewhere that too much swaddling restricts development? How come there is all of this discussion about talking to and playing with the baby, when mine is usually either asleep or crying, or awake and ready for interaction at kind of inconvenient times, or cries when I play with her? Etc. etc. Then I run to the books or the internet to try to figure it out, which of course results in my frustration with the conflicting advice and increases my anxiety. Like when I’m told that I’m supposed to be able to “read” her cues and figure out if she’s ready for interaction. I’m definitely not there yet and am not sure I know how to be.

It’s a cycle, I’m realizing as I write this! Ugh.

I’m also making it sound like this is how I’m spending my time all the time, which isn’t the case. These little anxiety spells happen once every few days, and the rest of the time is lovely—feeding and holding and rocking and cooing to the baby, and loving doing it. It does make me question whether I know what I’m doing, though. I guess that’s par for the course for new parenthood. (Right?)

I go back to work on the 20th. I have to say, I don’t dread it as much as I thought I would. I’m sure that’s partly because I have the luxury of working from home two days a week and bringing Essie with me one day a week, so I’m not faced with the prospect of spending five solid days a week away from my daughter. But I also have to say that I think getting out of the house by myself a couple days a week without the baby will be good for my mental health. That doesn’t make me a bad mother, does it?

After talking to the pediatrician (her regular one, thank goodness), I got the sense that he probably would not have advised me to go off breastmilk and onto formula, though he didn’t say it in so many words and I didn’t ask. Oh well. We acted on the best information we had at the time. As of Tuesday her bilirubin was down to 12.5. yay! I am so glad not to have to pump anymore. I got on antibiotics for the infection and am letting Essie drink to her heart’s content.

At any rate, things are back to normal—our new normal, that is. I’ve been handling Essie at night, and then at around 6 or 7 after she eats, Mama Jae takes her so I can sleep for a few more hours. That is working really well for now. We don’t have much of a schedule for the rest of the day, though. Sometimes Mama Jae goes to school and I have the baby for the afternoon. Sometimes we’re home with her together, and sometimes all three of us run errands.

This week I went to a “going back to work” class and also had a session with a lactation consultant. She reassured me that my supply was just fine, and that the reason Essie was so sleepy after formula feedings was that she was being overfed, that sometimes babies drink their fill and then keep sucking for comfort, and that the breast will stop producing milk when that happens but that the bottle clearly won’t. So that explains a whole host of issues and concerns I had over the weekend. Plus I also know that I can call the consultant whenever I need to. Big relief.

I can’t believe Essie is a month old already, born a month ago today. She already seems so big and is changing so much. She’s much more alert now, and spends more time when she’s awake in quiet alert or active alert than she used to. It used to be that when she was awake she was crying, and that happens much less now. She still has fussy periods, especially in the evenings, but we can spend time reading to her and playing with her during the day now. (I always felt a little silly reading a book to a sleeping baby.)

Essie loves to suck, and can spend up to 40 minutes breastfeeding/sucking. She also still loves to suck on one of our fingers, and she is slowly learning to suck on the meaty part of her own little hand. She’s still not a huge fan of pacifiers but sometimes we can trick her into taking one by getting her started on a finger. She loves being worn, though hates the process of being put into the Snugli* or the sleepy wrap. She is starting to track movements with her eyes, and likes to look at the black-and-white patterns I drew on pieces of paper and safety-pinned to the sides of her cosleeper.

Unless she’s tired or milkdrunk already, she hates being swaddled (we only wrap her tightly from the waist up because of the harness) but sleeps much better than when she isn’t swaddled. Same goes for diaper changes. She LOVES being outside, even in the 100-plus-degree heat wave we are having. She HATES having a bath. (Anyone have any advice about making bath time more enjoyable? She screams the whole time. Is it just one of those things that will get better with time, or is there something we can do now? It can be pretty excruciating.)

I’ve tried putting her on her tummy a few times when she’s awake, but she seems to hate that too. I’m not sure whether it’s the harness or just a general dislike of being on her stomach, though she’ll sleep on our chests on her stomach just fine.

All in all, things are pretty awesome around here. When she’s breastfeeding, I still can’t stop staring at the miracle of her tiny little ear or her long long eyelashes. I put her little hand in mine and look at her miniature perfect fingernails, and marvel that my hand is longer than her whole forearm. I touch her unbelievably soft hair and remember how it felt at the hospital the first time I touched it, how shocked I was that something could be that soft. I think about all the tiny little perfect organs inside her increasingly plump little body and am overcome with gratitude that they all work the way they’re supposed to. I watch her little face go through its catalogue of expressions—I love it when she purses her little lips or smiles in her sleep or has that milkdrunk expressionless expression. She also does this thing sometimes when I offer the second breast and she isn’t interested, where she closes her mouth tight and looks a little sly, like she’s up to something.

tiny hand/big hand

I could go on and on. Long story short: mothering Essie is the most amazing experience I have ever had. I can’t believe we’re so lucky. That we get to keep her.

*Did I talk about the Snugli yet? I don’t think I did. It’s the baby carrier my parents used when I was a baby. They had lent it to my uncle when my cousin was born, and he sent it to us after Essie was born. I cried when I opened the box (obviously—y’all know I’m a sucker for this kind of thing). It’s tan corduroy and mad 70s and she loves it as much as I did.

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Cue the waterworks. (Caveat: I do not judge anyone who decides to formula-feed their children. Mama Jae was formula-fed and she turned out just beautifully. But for us, and for our values, it just seemed wrong.) Every instinctual fiber of my newly-motherly being was screaming out against giving my daughter formula. Everything I’d read and everything Mama Jae and I believe in is pro-breastfeeding—breast is best, end of story, and we want what is best for our little girl. Plus I was worried that she would have nipple confusion and would refuse to take the breast after she’d had such an easy time with the bottle. I worried that my production wouldn’t keep up, even though I’d be pumping and storing the milk. Most of all, I worried that the test results would come back and they would somehow make the doctors think that I should stop breastfeeding entirely.

So we got home, and had to go buy formula, and find the bottles, and figure out how to use the pump. Turns out my sister, who lent the pump to me, forgot to include the AC adapter with it. Luckily Mama Jae is the kind of person who has a universal AC adapter on hand, because batteries weren’t working in it either. So I pumped for the first time, and we washed all of the bottles and their paraphernalia, and I bought formula with my head hanging. To cap off the evening, Mama Jae lost a crown. (Someday we will look back at this and laugh.)

On Friday, Mama Jae called the dentist, who had no openings that day and told her that she had to wait until Monday to get her tooth fixed, and to use Fixodent in the meantime. Then we went to the local children’s hospital to have Essie’s blood taken. They stuck the huge needle in her tiny little arm and I burst into tears, yet again. Then I had my 4-week appointment at my OB’s office, and told the whole story to both her nurse, who I adore, and the doctor herself, which meant I cried two more times. Later that evening, I talked to both my parents a few times (tears; crying) and also called the pediatrician one more time to make sure it was really a good idea for me not to breastfeed (more crying). (I was breastfeeding Essie while I talked to him—I just couldn’t take it anymore, and was so relieved to see her latch on, no problem.) To make his point, the pediatrician (again, not Essie’s regular doctor) basically scared me into following the formula-only protocol by saying things like “brain damage” and “my partners and I have never seen a bilirubin that high in a 3-week-old”. What else could we do but listen and follow instructions?

Meanwhile, Essie has been chugging the formula like a champ. Mama Jae and I think that they must put drugs in it, because she sleeps like the dead after most meals. So of course that also makes me think that maybe she was TOO fussy before, when she was breastfeeding, and that something is wrong with my milk. UGGGGHHH

I’ve also been pumping every time she eats, and I’m starting to worry that my production is going down. Sometimes I can get 3 or more ounces per session, but mostly it’s only two. Plus, I have developed these red streaks on my breasts and they hurt. Pumping is not fun—either I’m not doing it right or it just doesn’t feel good, especially compared to cuddling my baby while breastfeeding.

Of course it’s the weekend, so the lactation office at the hospital where I gave birth is closed, so I can’t ask them about all of these concerns. Does anyone have any words of wisdom or experience to share about any or all of this that is reassuring?

Also, just for fun, a little quiz for you:
Our dog Oliver, who has never had an “accident” in his life, has peed on the following items since we brought the baby home:
A. His bed
B. Our bed
C. The rug in our bedroom
D. The couch
E. All of the above

If you guessed E, congratulations! Bonus points if you also had a suspicion that he peed on our bed and the rug in our bedroom twice each, and that A, B, and C all happened in the same night.

Thankfully tomorrow is Monday, and we can get the results of the bloodwork; Mama Jae can get her tooth fixed; and I can call a lactation consultant. We also go back to see the orthopedic guy tomorrow to see how her hip is doing.

I would love to just have a healthy baby. I know she will be fine, but it would have been so nice to spend the first month of her little life just cuddling and holding her and not worrying about anything other than normal mom stuff, like whether her poop is the right color and if we’re stimulating her enough. The other day, while her hip harness was drying, I was holding her, and it felt weird to me that she was such a little limp sack all over, instead of being rigid from the waist down. How depressing is that? Ugh. I would have liked for her health to just be normal, and to cuddle my baby without all this nylon and velcro between us. I know, I know: Welcome to parenthood; and also It could have been worse.

Silver lining: at least we know she will take a bottle when it comes time for me to go back to work. Also, Mama Jae, as we all already knew, is a rock. As I’ve been falling apart off and on, she has been calm and steady and reassuring, and has even managed to make me laugh through my tears. She is the best thing ever, and I don’t know what I’d do without her.

I am loving watching Mama Jae with Essie. She is a natural, and the baby really responds to her as she rocks her and walks around with her and talks to her. It’s so beautiful to watch them bond. Essie herself is pretty amazing, too. I love stroking her incredibly soft skin and silky hair and looking at her tiny fingers and fingernails and ears and eyes and pouty little lips. I look at her and think about how, the whole time I was pregnant, it was this specific little person inside of me. Her little grunts and swallows while she’s breastfeeding are so primal and immediate, as are her cries, especially when she gets really worked up. And we are in charge of meeting the very primal and immediate needs of this very specific little person. Our days are sculpted around doing just that.

I’ve been having some anxiety about my parenting abilities, especially on those days when I haven’t had much sleep and it seems that nothing I try calms her down. I also sometimes worry that I don’t know enough about how to provide appropriate stimulation for her at this stage of her development. But the anxiety is mixed with the knowledge that we will figure it all out. I’m so lucky that Mama Jae is around during my maternity leave—doing these early weeks together makes things much more manageable, and I like that we are figuring things out together. It can be hard but it is so rewarding and lovely at the same time.

We’re about halfway through my maternity leave. I am trying not to think too much about going back to work, focusing instead on enjoying this time with my new little family. I know it’s going to fly by.

We celebrated Essie’s first week of life with a baby-naming ceremony, which my parents and little sister threw together on July 11. A lot of our friends came, and everyone went around the room and shared a wish or hope they had for the baby. Mama Jae and I each lit a candle, and together took our candles and lit a third. We talked a little about her name and its significance, and gave her a Hebrew name. It was such a beautiful ceremony. I cried pretty much the whole way through. There was just so much love and support in the room.

A couple of days later, when Essie was a mere 8 days old, she had her first court date. As it turns out, in the lovely state of Tennessee, since Mama Jae’s and my marriage is not recognized, I am considered an unwed mother, and in this state, the babies born to unwed mothers have to have their same last names. So I couldn’t write the last name we wanted for Essie, which was Mama Jae’s and my names hyphenated, on her birth certificate. So trampy whore me, my bastard child, and the woman I’m living in sin with all had to go to court to get her name legally changed.

Mama Jae and Essie at the court house

It cost about $700, to add a hyphen and two letters (Mama Jae’s last name is wicked short). And we still have to wait for the incorrect birth certificate and social security card to come in the mail, and then go through god knows how much red tape to get those changed.

That same day, my parents headed back home to Virginia. They made me promise before they left that I would not write a thank you note. Lucky for me, I can go a step further and talk about them on my blog for all the world to see. HA!

You would not believe how much my parents did while they were here. They cooked and cleaned and did laundry and pulled weeds and planted things and fixed doors and put up shelves and towel racks and painted the crib and assembled it and put together the pack n’ play and baked scones and ran errands and took gifts to the nurses at the hospital and bought us a glider and ottoman and brought us delicious meals in the hospital and gave me massages and a pedicure and hosted the baby-naming ceremony and put up artwork in the house and god knows what else they did that I’m forgetting or that they did without me knowing. Basically, they came in and made our lives not only easy, but vastly better. They made it so all we had to do the first week was bond with our daughter. Our house is finally unpacked and liveable and clean and lovely to be in, thanks to them. They were just amazing and Mama Jae and I are grateful beyond the capacity of mere words to express.

Saying goodbye to Bubbe and Granddaddy

On a vastly different note, I haven’t mentioned yet that while we were in the hospital, the pediatrician, on his first visit, told us that Essie’s hip was not fully developed, and that she needed to see a pediatric orthopedics doctor. I mostly blocked this idea out of my head the first week of Essie’s life, because every time I thought about it it made me cry. She just seemed so perfect, so how could her hip be messed up? and why couldn’t she just BE as perfect health-wise as she was in every other way? It turns out that this is relatively common, happening in  3 out of 1000 births, and more often to girls. So when Essie was nine days old, off we went to the orthopedics guy. She got outfitted for a harness, which she has to wear from now until whenever her hip finishes developing, which could be a few weeks or months from now. She had an ultrasound and x-rays. It was a long visit, and a lot for her mamas to handle.

Essie in her harness

Neither the hip nor the harness seem to hurt or bother her all that much. The harness is kind of a pain in the ass—it makes diaper and clothing changes longer and harder and less fun for everyone involved. Also, we have to keep her legs as close to the open position as they can be at all times, so no swaddling at this household (she hated it anyway), and not a lot of time in the swing or car seat. But that’s okay; she sleeps pretty well on her back and when we wear her.

Luckily, breastfeeding got off to a great start and has been going really well ever since. We saw her regular pediatrician yesterday for her two-week visit and she’d gained 7 ounces in a week, and is above her birth weight. Everyone is delighted that that’s going well. I’m enjoying breastfeeding—I love the closeness with my baby, and the enforced downtime every couple of hours or so. I love that my body is making food that is sustaining this amazing human life. It seems incredible to me that my body knows how to do this, no problem. I know I’m a broken record about this, but every time my body does what it’s supposed to, it comes as a bit of a shock.

Ooo! The UPS guy just delivered the birth announcements we ordered. I have more to say about Essie and how amazing she is, and about how we’re learning to be parents, but this post is long enough that I think I’ll save it for another time. Thanks again to everyone for your amazing support and sweet comments—they mean so much. xo

Oh! And if you asked for the password and didn’t get an email from me, it means that I didn’t have your e-mail address. So you can email me at moms [at] baointheoven [dot] com if you still need it.